Exclusive release: Watch Ashram – Inside the Forgotten City

Exclusive release: Watch Ashram – Inside the Forgotten City

By Shaswata Kundu Chaudhuri

While Kolkata gets revamped in a modern attire with skyscrapers invading eagle land and glass replacing brick and stone, some parts of it remain as it is, holding on desperately to its old world charm.

North Kolkata is pride for its residents and wonder for the rest, with its magnificent old houses, some breaking down but still looking fetching. It’s narrow lanes and hidden bylanes bleed life everyday through its people who exist in the fringes.

Ashram, consisting of Arko Mukhaerjee and Berlin based electronic producer Kanishka Sarkar, in its music video, shows this beautiful part of town in its colourful, commoner glory.

The camera moves through the crowded roads of Kolkata’s idol making hub, Kumartuli, and captures much more than the busy lanes – the various people who seek refuge there, the tales their eyes tell, their trades, their meals and their ageless association with the nearby Ganga.

The video captures the essence of Ashram all too well as their music travels through India, speaking of the common people through songs of the soil, saints, boatmen, farmers and festivities at the backdrop of an electronic-root-tribal-ethnic soundscape.

If you care to look over your modern shades, feel the heat burn into your sweaty skin, and walk and walk until you are pleasantly lost, Ashram takes you on a trip down memory lane, wrapped in a nostalgic spirituality.